Iran is rapidly gaining new capabilities to strike at U.S. warships in the Persian Gulf, amassing an arsenal of sophisticated anti-ship missiles while expanding its fleet of fast-attack boats and submarines, U.S. and Middle Eastern analysts say.

The new systems, many of them developed with foreign assistance, are giving Iran’s commanders new confidence that they could quickly damage or destroy U.S. ships if hostilities erupt, the officials say....

Some of the new systems that Iran is deploying aren’t really all that new, such as small diesel-electric submarines, which are very quiet compared to nuclear boats, and which are intended for littoral warfare, and thus for bottling up U.S. surface forces in the Persian Gulf region. They can be defeated, however, and the U.S. Navy is quite capable of doing just that. Iran would be risking annihilation if they are so foolish as to start shooting at us.